I suppose it depends what the point is. My point is that unvaccinated children in a waiting room endanger both the formula-fed and breast-fed babies in the waiting room, while formula-fed vaccinated babies, even if they are less healthy than breast-fed babies, do not.. The odds of the latter bringing a dangerous infectious disease into the waiting room are much lower. Now, I realize my statement doesn't seem true to families who believe that amulets ward off disease, but more and more pediatricians—as is the point of the original post—don't want these families in their practice.

Your claim is that all vaccines prevent transmission that that is not true, so try again.

I said [emphasis added], "The odds of the latter bringing a dangerous infectious disease into the waiting room are much lower." I did not say that they were zero. I did not claim that vaccination prevented transmission, but that it makes transmission much less likely, which is true. Unvaccinated children are something like 20 to 100 times as likely to be bringing measles into the waiting room, so why would a pediatrician want them there? Rather than deal with the numbers, you decided to read what you wanted to see and not what I wrote.

Breastfed babies get sick less often. Less sickness=less transmitting disease.

And all pediatricians I know strongly encourage breastfeeding. But a formula-fed baby is not 20x as likely to bring measles into the waiting room as a breast-fed baby, so the relative risk calculation is very different.

Breastfed babies get sick less often in general. Less sickness=less transmitting disease. In terms of VAD, they are significantly less likely to get rota early or Hib.

Especially breastfed babies of mothers that have naturally acquired immunity to VADs.

As Dr Tetyana Obukhanych Ph.D, one of the world’s leading Immunologists points out, vaccines have stripped mothers, and by extension, their baby, of the capacity for life-long immuno-protection, given the absence of NATURAL childhood exposure to measles in the environment.

And all pediatricians I know strongly encourage breastfeeding. But a formula-fed baby is not 20x as likely to bring measles into the waiting room as a breast-fed baby, so the relative risk calculation is very different.

Measles is hardly the only disease going around. In terms of cases per year in the USA it barely goes around. It makes far more sense to limit formula fed babies than breastfed babies, as they are sicker in general with all sorts of things that actually circulate and thus are more likely to spread sickness.

None-the-less, if I were a pediatrician I would not limit formula fed children despite them being more likely to be a "disease vector," as I am an not a discriminatory egoist who pitches fits because patients won't do exactly as they are told. I also abhor the idea of making it difficult on families to find medical care.

As Dr Tetyana Obukhanych Ph.D, one of the world’s leading Immunologists points out, vaccines have stripped mothers, and by extension, their baby, of the capacity for life-long immuno-protection, given the absence of NATURAL childhood exposure to measles in the environment.

I'm sure the 500 people who would have died this year from measles are heartbroken by this development.

Poison ivy is natural. Natural can be a little overblown.

(PS: I assume you were responsible for deleting my post in the other thread. What about my First Amendment rights?)

Andrew, I'm on your side, but you don't have any First Amendment rights here. You are free to express yourself however you like in a public forum, but this is privately owned and mothering.com has every right to delete anything they don't want to host.

Chickabiddy, I was being a little sarcastic, as anti-vaxxers tend to discover First Amendment freedom-of-religion rights out of thin air, including against private entities like daycare centers, and I thought I would do likewise.

I'm not a breast milk denier, and I am very glad to see, for example, more widespread acceptance of public breastfeeding. I would point out that your list includes many diseases that are not remotely contagious.

I'm looking at the scarlet fever graph, and it's another example of what I described in this thread, copying data from "mainstream" sources without any context or explanation of what we are supposed to conclude, and why. My best guess is that it attempts to refute my graph (from CDC data) showing a huge drop in measles incidence at the time the measles vaccine was released. Here we have an enormous drop in scarlet fever incidence during the chart's gap from 1945 to 1980, even though we do not vaccinate against scarlet fever.

There is a big problem with this. Scarlet fever (which, incidentally, both my sons contracted) is closely related to strep throat. If antibiotics are administered at the first sign of sore throat, the disease may not even progress to its characteristic rash, which typically appears 12 to 24 hours after the onset of symptoms. In the first part of the graph, penicillin and the other antibiotics were not available for general use, so the full disease manifested itself. (Severe complications might then ensue.) Since the disease was highly contagious, quarantine was enforced, so the count of cases before 1945 is presumably taken from mandatory records. By 1980, however, both strep throat and scarlet fever were cured in almost every case by (unnatural) antibiotics, so there was no need for quarantine. While scarlet fever is still a mandatory report in England (according to Google), simple strep throat is not. Prompt antibiotic treatment of strep infections also reduces their transmission. In other words, while the near-disappearance of scarlet fever doesn't come from a vaccine, it does come from medical discoveries, in this case, penicillin, erythromycin, etc.

It might be lazy of me but I'm not going to go back and read 13 pages of comments.

But since the subject (with regards to strep) appears to be the decline of disease in the absence of vaccines, I wanted to point out something that got my attention recently.

When I first read the mothering anthology on vaccine research (which I don't have anymore, can't remember the name of it, as it was gifted to me), I remember reading a few claims that better sanitary conditions led to the decline of polio, and not the vaccine. I hear this all the time from some folks on the anti-vax side. Yet, in Arthur Allen's book Vaccine:... (you can argue he's biased, and I won't dispute it) he brought up an interesting contradiction to this theory. He argued that better sanitary conditions actually led to the spike in the polio cases that we saw in the early 20th century. Why? The same reason that anti-vaxxers typically claim that vaccines can increase morbidity in general: because the new hygiene standards actually prevented early infection with polio which seems to be more benign, and started hitting children and adults a bit later in life when it was more likely that they would manifest symptoms of paralytic polio.

Maybe this is frivolous info in this discussion, but I think it's fascinating. If anyone wants more details I can go dig up the sources for this theory. Otherwise I'll just throw it out there.

In that theory, sewage-water can boost your immunity to polio. I don't think that necessarily warrants a return to the glorious days of sewage-contaminated water, though.

I feel the same way about the pre-vaccine days of natural immunity. Immunity from future infection is a great outcome for someone who just dealt with a serious, or maybe not-so-serious illness. Yet I consider the sometimes weaker, but still largely effective immunity that comes from vaccines to be preferable to natural infection. I agree with Andrew Lazarus, the graphs, like the strep graph above, aren't the best indicators of what's going on without thorough investigation. That goes for the pro-vax side, too. Just because a graph shows a "vaccine introduced" point and a rapid decline, doesn't necessarily make the case. All this other info (hygiene, antibiotics, etc) is very necessary. The problem I have is with the implied assumption that no epidemiologist has considered any other factors besides vaccine leading to declines, which seems to be the basis of many anti-vax arguments. Many of these other factors that are thrown out there have been considered and haven't been significantly linked to population-level declines in disease in the way vaccines (and antibiotics, and to a lesser extent, handwashing) have.

Like, what would you say accounts for the decline in scarlet fever cases, Mirzam? Breastfeeding? I can't find the origin of the strep part of this discussion, so I'm clueless as to what that graph is supposed to represent also, other than the obvious decline, all by itself.

The moderators continue to delete my posts on anti-vax epistemology, but I will try again as calmly as I can. Maybe I'll split the analysis into two posts and they will let this one stay up.

Anti-vax activists have a pattern of posting material from "mainstream" scientific journals without any explanation of what we are supposed to conclude, and why. They seem to be looking for a silver bullet that the scientists themselves have overlooked because of their allegiance to the "mainstream" pro-vax view. The scarlet fever chart is an example. A second example appears here. Someone with two measles vaccinations not only became sick, but infected four other people who were either vaccinated or had measles antibodies.

What exactly does this refute? That the MMR is 100% effective? This is a total straw man; no one has ever made such a claim. The people who wrote the article state it is the first known example of some correctly vaccinated who not only became sick but also transmitted the disease. As an estimate of vaccine failure, the fact this is the first example in all this time makes it sound very low. And only 5 people were sick before herd immunity stopped the spread cold.

For comparison, in the same city (New York), a recent outbreak of measles in an unvaccinated religious sect had 58 cases (all unvaxed) and lasted six generations. Even though the vast majority of New Yorkers are vaccinated, the numbers are 58 to 5.

Anti-vax arguments have to explain why polio incidence dropped like a rock from 1954-56 (vaccine released) and measles did likewise for 1964-66, when the measles vaccine was released. It's hard to believe that we had two separate revolutions in hygiene and nutrition ten years apart, timed just when the vaccine came out too. That's their big challenge, not sniping at the edges of vaccine efficiency.

Your biggest challenge seems to be in your constant and demeaning use of the phrase anti-vaxx and anti-vaxxers. The implication that someone balks at any and all forms of mainstream medical opting for voodoo witchcraft is just plain rude. I'm pretty sure I can speak for a large majority of us NON-vaxxers on here in that we do not shun vaccines and are not anti-medical. We've simply experienced first hand these "rare" adverse reactions with ourselves or our children or have just come to a different conclusion in our decision to no vaccinate. It is, after all, a personal choice, and no, we do not consult crystal balls in coming to this decision.

It might be lazy of me but I'm not going to go back and read 13 pages of comments.

But since the subject (with regards to strep) appears to be the decline of disease in the absence of vaccines, I wanted to point out something that got my attention recently.

When I first read the mothering anthology on vaccine research (which I don't have anymore, can't remember the name of it, as it was gifted to me), I remember reading a few claims that better sanitary conditions led to the decline of polio, and not the vaccine. I hear this all the time from some folks on the anti-vax side. Yet, in Arthur Allen's book Vaccine:... (you can argue he's biased, and I won't dispute it) he brought up an interesting contradiction to this theory. He argued that better sanitary conditions actually led to the spike in the polio cases that we saw in the early 20th century. Why? The same reason that anti-vaxxers typically claim that vaccines can increase morbidity in general: because the new hygiene standards actually prevented early infection with polio which seems to be more benign, and started hitting children and adults a bit later in life when it was more likely that they would manifest symptoms of paralytic polio.

Maybe this is frivolous info in this discussion, but I think it's fascinating. If anyone wants more details I can go dig up the sources for this theory. Otherwise I'll just throw it out there.

In that theory, sewage-water can boost your immunity to polio. I don't think that necessarily warrants a return to the glorious days of sewage-contaminated water, though.

I feel the same way about the pre-vaccine days of natural immunity. Immunity from future infection is a great outcome for someone who just dealt with a serious, or maybe not-so-serious illness. Yet I consider the sometimes weaker, but still largely effective immunity that comes from vaccines to be preferable to natural infection. I agree with Andrew Lazarus, the graphs, like the strep graph above, aren't the best indicators of what's going on without thorough investigation. That goes for the pro-vax side, too. Just because a graph shows a "vaccine introduced" point and a rapid decline, doesn't necessarily make the case. All this other info (hygiene, antibiotics, etc) is very necessary. The problem I have is with the implied assumption that no epidemiologist has considered any other factors besides vaccine leading to declines, which seems to be the basis of many anti-vax arguments. Many of these other factors that are thrown out there have been considered and haven't been significantly linked to population-level declines in disease in the way vaccines (and antibiotics, and to a lesser extent, handwashing) have.

Like, what would you say accounts for the decline in scarlet fever cases, Mirzam? Breastfeeding? I can't find the origin of the strep part of this discussion, so I'm clueless as to what that graph is supposed to represent also, other than the obvious decline, all by itself.

I've mentioned the theory that better sanitation actually caused the big Polio epidemics in the US on these forums before. Can't remember if anyone responded or refuted it.

From the WHO "It is thought that improvements in community sanitation, including provision of sewage disposal system and clean water supplies, led to fewer opportunities for infection among infants and young children. Exposure to wild polio virus was therefore delayed until late childhood or adult life." http://whqlibdoc.who.int/hq/1993/WHO_EPI_GEN_93.16_mod6.pdf?ua=1

Interesting stuff, and I agree with your assessment: "I don't think that necessarily warrants a return to the glorious days of sewage-contaminated water, though."

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” ~ Christopher Hitchens

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Your biggest challenge seems to be in your constant and demeaning use of the phrase anti-vaxx and anti-vaxxers. The implication that someone balks at any and all forms of mainstream medical opting for voodoo witchcraft is just plain rude. I'm pretty sure I can speak for a large majority of us NON-vaxxers on here in that we do not shun vaccines and are not anti-medical. We've simply experienced first hand these "rare" adverse reactions with ourselves or our children or have just come to a different conclusion in our decision to no vaccinate. It is, after all, a personal choice, and no, we do not consult crystal balls in coming to this decision.

If I understand this correctly, I should use "anti-vax" for people who believe vaccines are both dangerous AND totally ineffective, and who practice alternative medicine in general, but "non-vax" for people who generally agree with mainstream medicine but who have decided to avoid the occasional adverse reaction to vaccines by letting other people take the risk. I would like to think that I am not understanding this correctly. Can you elaborate?

We've had this discussion on MDC before, but I don't think you were a part of it. I selectively vax and question the U.S. schedule. So neither anti-vax nor non-vax fit me. I've used pro-compliance to refer to those who are not just pro-vaccine, but who also believe that absolutely every possible child should assume the risk of vaccination for the Greater Good. That label didn't go over well among some, though. Could it be that, like most issues, the vaccination discussion is too complex for black and white labeling?

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If I understand this correctly, I should use "anti-vax" for people who believe vaccines are both dangerous AND totally ineffective, and who practice alternative medicine in general, but "non-vax" for people who generally agree with mainstream medicine but who have decided to avoid the occasional adverse reaction to vaccines by letting other people take the risk. I would like to think that I am not understanding this correctly. Can you elaborate?

Since most people are likely going to describe themselves differently, being that they're individuals & all, maybe you could just describe yourself so you don't need to make assumptions about others?

I'm not anti-vaccine. I'm pro logic. Short cuts are not logical to me when it comes to the human body. My body (& my children's) are in a world of hurt right now thanks to "modern day medicine," aka short cuts. Go ahead & try to describe me. But I may not respond because I'm generally up to my eyeballs in shit thanks to short cuts taken by my parents & the "medical" people they got advice from while raising me.

Best wishes,
Sus

Edited to correct a misspelled word.

Baby the babies while they're babies so they don't need babying for a lifetime.

If I understand this correctly, I should use "anti-vax" for people who believe vaccines are both dangerous AND totally ineffective, and who practice alternative medicine in general, but "non-vax" for people who generally agree with mainstream medicine but who have decided to avoid the occasional adverse reaction to vaccines by letting other people take the risk. I would like to think that I am not understanding this correctly. Can you elaborate?

I'm glad you would like to think that you are not understanding this correctly, because you are NOT understanding this correctly

Perhaps, rather than assuming that you understand the values, beliefs, and medical history behind decisions made by people you don't know, you should simply refer to them as those who question and/or criticize vaccine safety and efficacy.

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” ~ Christopher Hitchens

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He's not a regular member here so it makes sense that he doesn't know about the pro compliance/anti vaccine term drama we've had here.

The general consensus is that the members here like being called non-vaccine/vaccine critics and pro-vaccine for us. Although you can call yourself whatever you want, obviously.

That's a rotten excuse for using the term "anti-vax activist," which he keeps using in his posts. I haven't yet found anyone who criticizes vaccines who wants to be labeled as an "anti-vax activist." Google "I am an anti-vax activist" and Jenny McCarthy comes up in the first 10 pages--even though she repeatedly states that she is not "anti-vaccine" but is campaigning for safer vaccines.

Of course, the standard response from the pro-vax side (which has been stated many times here) is that "vaccines are safe and effective." So perhaps we should put that argument of denial to rest once and for all.

Saying that to one of the thousands of parents whose child had a severe adverse reaction to a vaccine (or vaccines) is rather like saying, "Millions of Toyotas have been driven without ever having one of those accidents, therefore they are safe," to someone whose child was injured in one of the sudden-acceleration accidents involving a faulty Toyota.

And, yeah, Toyota denied there was a problem for a long, long time, AND covered up evidence of such a problem. Sound familiar?

That's a rotten excuse for using the term "anti-vax activist," which he keeps using in his posts. I haven't yet found anyone who criticizes vaccines who wants to be labeled as an "anti-vax activist." Google "I am an anti-vax activist" and Jenny McCarthy comes up in the first 10 pages--even though she repeatedly states that she is not "anti-vaccine" but is campaigning for safer vaccines.

Is the term "anti-vax activist" more offensive than the term "anti vaxxer"? It's an honest question. I really had no idea.

“That which can be asserted without evidence, can be dismissed without evidence.” ~ Christopher Hitchens

I'm a mom to two great kids and a wife to an amazing husband To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts. I'm also proudly #teamvax To view links or images in signatures your post count must be 10 or greater. You currently have 0 posts.